The Spiders and the Stars

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 242, 9 July 1938, Page 9 (Supplement)

The Spiders and the Stars

WHO wants live spiders? We, say ’ ’ the instrument-makers of England, we want some spiders. Every now and again the spiderhunters go off on their strange quest. Some go on the commons (Strensall Common, in Yorkshire, is a happy hunting ground). taking with them emptv pill boxes They are searching for the Epeira Diademata, a beauti-fully-marked spider with a cross on its back. The hunters must lie careful not to frighten the spiders, and their work is to entice the little creatures into pill boxes. When KO or 100 have been trapped the hunter goes back to the factory, where the spiders are placed on a stick held about three feet from the ground. Gently shaken, they fall at the end of a fine silken thread, and after about 10 of these threads have been collected the spiders are released The silken strung of the web is often less than a 5000th part of an inch across, and it Is this thread which is needed for making surveying and astronomical instruments. So the spiders help us to study the stars. Sometimes a still finer thread is needed, and to obtain this a skilled workman takes an extremely tine needle and with it splits the silken cord, taking away one or more strands, a process which needs a steady eye and a steady hand.